Rent Ghost Stories (2017)

Lazily derivative but worth it for the creepy atmosphere - Ghost Stories review by MB

Okay, I get it. It's difficult being original. And it's even harder in a genre like horror. But still...

I won't include the obvious spoilers, the main one lifted from a famous 1990s crime/heist movie. And if you know Silence of the Lambs well, you'll even hear snippets of dialogue from that movie in Ghost Stories - not as quotes but as, well, dialogue.

So why is this even worth watching? Two reasons: one is its creepy, oppressive atmosphere, beautifully realised by its Director of Photography. When a working men's club appears as a setting it's like you can *smell* the place and I can't recall a movie doing this so well for quite a while. [Actually, I can: the glacially slow but utterly terrifying Italian horror, 'Across the River']

Second reason is a remarkable performance from Alex Lawther, who pretty well steals the movie.

Overall: if you know your movies, prepare to be a bit annoyed. But if you can make a bet on Lawther winning a Oscar one day, you'll eventually win your Cinema Paradiso subscription money back.

A hugely entertaining and enjoyable homage to portmanteau Hammer horror films of the 1940s-1970s - Ghost Stories review by PV

I loved this film - which is based on a stage play, which shows in the clever structure and twists.

Andy Newman comes from a magic production background - he produces many of Derren Brown's stage shows - and Jeremy Dyson who cowrote/produced this with Newman, comes from The League of Gentlemen, so that's a class double act to start with.

Three short stories about spooky goings-on are linked by common threads (no spoilers) and, whilst the increasing tricksiness may pose more questions than it answers and irritate, it keeps the film well-paced and entertaining until the very end.

Paul Whitehouse plays, well, Paul Whitehouse doing his cockney act though makes it more mental than on The Fast Show or his own TV show; Martin Freeman is brilliant as a posho city boy - in fact, he's so convincing that at first I didn't recognise him - his impression is spot-on of that type of person. The middle tale of a teenager is also entertaining.

I do so hope more of these modern portmanteau horror movies get made - I loved the old Hammer horror ones, often featuring Peter Cushing and people like Roy Castle and even Boris Karloff (British Universal horror veteran William Pratt). The first was perhaps the brilliant Dead of Night (1945) which was remade in the early 70s - the ventriloquist doll sequence of the first movie is classic. But also Dr Terror's House of Horror, Torture Garden, Tales from the Crypt, Asylum etc. They died out (pardon the pun) as Hammer went under in the 80s, which is a shame - though TV replaced horror movies really. Now they live again. HOORAH!

These portmanteau films always have a twist at the end which links all the stories, so keep your wits about you during the film as the ending will make more sense then (no spoilers).

I could watch this all over again. Brilliant entertainment and genuinely spooky with some frights and jumps along the way, though the stories are based on old horror tropes such as the haunted house/asylum, a broken-down car, spooky woods, ghostly children etc.

Enjoy the ride! 5 stars!

Frightening anthology - mild spoilers follow. - Ghost Stories review by NP

This is a rich, fruity, beautifully made British horror film directed, written by and starring Andy Nyman as Philip Goodman (co-director Jeremy Dyson has an uncredited cameo as a DJ). Goodman is a solitary investigator committed to debunking the ‘myth’ of the paranormal. After meeting his hero, former paranormal investigator Charles Cameron (a deeply unpleasant individual reduced and ill, living in squalor) he is offered three cases and challenged to investigate them. Thus we are supplied with the trilogy of tales in this anthology.

Paul Whitehouse plays Tony Matthews, night watchman, haunted by something nasty in an empty warehouse. Alex Lawthur is Simon Rifkind, a teenager who stumbles across a rattled demon whilst driving through woodland. Mike Priddle, played by Martin Freeman, brings the trilogy to a close troubled by a poltergeist whilst waiting for his son to be born.

Of course, things are rarely as they seem, and it is only after these stories are told that things become really weird, and there’s a pleasing smattering of MR James-inspired moments. It is possible that the dénouement might be seen by some as disappointing, but the slow-burning lead-up to that moment is very effective.